GRAND ISLE, La. — The Grand Isle Police Department and Louisiana State Police are investigating a deadly UTV accident.
The family of fifteen-year-old Reese Rios said she was killed in the accident, and her friend was injured but is expected to be okay.
According to a press release from Grand Isle Police, the accident happened Saturday around 12:12 p.m.
The family said the two friends were being driven in the UTV by an adult who was not under the influence.
The Rios family is calling it a freak accident.
The family says Grand Isle was one of Reese's favorite places.
"We went there this weekend for her. It was her day. She wanted to spend a weekend on the beach so we gave in," Reese's father Adrian Rios said.
The family wanted their daughter, sister and friend to be remembered not by how she died but how she lived.
"She never met a stranger. She loved people. And she was loved. My baby girl was loved," Lesley Rios, Reese's mother, recounts.
The Rios family says their daughter was a social butterfly, creating TikToks left and right to share her infectious smile with the world.
She was the youngest of five siblings and was described as the most independent out of them.
Reese's sister Rylie said she was fearless, loving, charismatic, thoughtful and protective, but her brother said she could not be described in any words.
"As much as she was my little sister, she protected me as if she was my big sister. She would let nothing happen to me," Rylie explained.
Her family said she enjoyed being under the bright lights as a cheerleader for Houma Christian Academy but also found solace hunting and fishing with her father, Adrian Rios.
He said she was always inviting others to experience the outdoors with her family.
"Her heart was larger than her," Lesley said.
They now say all they need are thoughts and prayers because they are finding peace knowing where Reese is now.
"We have to live for her because she wouldn't want it any other way," Lesley Rios said.
The family now says she is an angel who left this world doing what she loved most in her favorite place.
"Tomorrow is not promised. Just hold your loved ones," Lesley said.